


Stuck With You

by lostariels



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Abduction, Anger, Bickering, Blood and Injury, Confrontations, Drug Use, Escape, F/F, Fighting, Green Kryptonite, Heartache, Injury, Kidnapping, Love Confessions, Pain, Pining, Reconciliation, Trapped, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostariels/pseuds/lostariels
Summary: “Kara,” she sighed, her voice gravelly and thick.The blue pants were unmistakable, as was the red cape that obscured the hero’s head as it cascaded towards the ground. With a painfully slow creak, the chain rotated as Kara’s arms started paddling wildly, and Lena watched with a glum, weary expression as blonde curls and a red face became visible below her.“Oh! You’re awake!” Kara said, her voice garbled and strained, yet still full of relief.Lena let out a thin sigh as she limply dangled, manacles painfully biting into her wrists as her cut palms smarted. Things weren’t looking great for her at the moment and the fact that Kara had somehow ended up chained upside down beside her only further added salt to Lena’s wounds.“What are you doing here?” Lena groaned.“Oh … you know … just hanging out.”
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 48
Kudos: 1687





	Stuck With You

“Wakey wakey.”

Lena had to bite back a groan at the annoyingly familiar voice in her ear, rivulets of frigid water ran off her face, tracing down her temples and cheeks and pooling in the hollows of her eyes as she struggled to blink heavy eyelids open.

“Fuck,” she mumbled, the curse coming out slurred around the thick tongue and cloying sweet taste that coated her parched throat. 

Her mind felt foggy, and she knew somewhere in the midst of it all that she’d been drugged, but she couldn’t straighten out her thoughts into anything that made sense. All Lena knew was that she was cold, wet and stretched on something hard, a chill seeping into her back. And perhaps worst of all was the fact that her brother was there with her.  _ That _ much was overwhelmingly clear as his smug superiority was lorded over her.

“Ah, about time! I was starting to think you’d never come around, and then I would’ve had to figure out a new plan, which would’ve been  _ such _ a shame and a bit of an inconvenience with such short notice,” Lex slowly rambled, his footsteps echoing in a cavernous room as he delighted in the sound of his own voice.

Lena coughed painfully, her dry throat rasping as she flopped like a drowning fish, control of her body still somewhat out of reach as she grasped for the ability to move, to run, to escape. Whatever Lex wanted didn’t bode well for her, and if he’d gone through the effort of drugging her, she was in more trouble than she cared to be in. 

“Come on, open your eyes. Up you get. We’ve got work to do.”

Quietly groaning, Lena struggled to open her eyes, wincing at the thin slits of blinding light that painted the insides of her eyelids red as she managed to turn her head to look up at the ceiling. She sluggishly tried to sit up and felt bindings chafe against her wrists, making her hiss with pain as she struggled.

“You  _ tied _ me up?” she quietly snarled, her lips tingling as they pulled back slightly.

She blinked and squinted, eyes narrowed against the harsh fluorescent lights overhead, feeling her skin prickle as footsteps stopped beside her. Still somewhat disoriented, her vision wavered as her head lolled to the side at the faint rustling of fabric. Lex crouched beside her, doubling and then tripling as Lena blinked owlishly, trying to focus on the one in the middle as he gave her a cold smile.

“Well, I didn’t want you running away now if you woke up early. You’re too clever for your own good; who knows what kind of chaos you would’ve concocted before my men caught you again.”

Making a low sound of contempt at the back of her throat, Lena dissolved into a coughing fit, painfully arching against the cold floor as she brought her bound hands up to her mouth. Drawing in a rattling breath, she slumped back against the floor, her energy spent as a feeble weakness made her limbs feel heavy and clumsy.

“On your feet,” Lex said, after a moment of observation, gripping the rope wrapped around her wrists and hauling her to her feet as he straightened up.

He let go of her and Lena staggered backwards, bound feet giving her a few scant inches for her to shuffle around, slamming into a steel bench and sending an assortment of vials and beakers crashing to the floor. 

Lex darted towards her, hands outstretched and a flicker of panic in his eyes that Lena didn’t mistake for concern for her wellbeing, and steadied her as she sagged. His grip was hard enough to bruise and Lena scowled up at him from beneath furrowed eyebrows, with nowhere to go as she felt the edge of the table bite into her lower back.

“Easy,” Lex said with a sharp smile, “we wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“What did you give me?”

He made sure she had her feet underneath her before he let her go, hands in his pockets and a smug look on his face as he paced away from her, ambling along as if he had all the time in the world. Lena stood amidst the smashed shards of glass and glanced over at Lex’s back as he began to talk, all but collapsing to the floor in her hurry to pick up a shard.

“I had Otis Graves chloroform you to get you out of the city,” Lex explained, his footsteps ringing loudly in the spacious room as he walked away from her, none the wiser of Lena scrambled around in the broken shards for a decent-sized piece of glass. 

“He brought you to our house and I gave you a nice big dose of Benzodiazepine and a few other tranquillizers I turned into my own personal cocktail - I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s  _ very _ effective - to keep you out cold while we transferred you here. It’s been … sixteen hours. I had to give you another little dose when we arrived to keep you under so I could finalise some arrangements, but here we are!”

Clapping his hands together, he rounded on Lena and gave her a wide smile as she stood, leaning against the table with the shard of glass digging into the palm of her hand, blood welling up from the gouge marks. Raising her chin in a haughty manner, Lena gave him a scornful look and made a low scoffing sound at the back of her throat.

“What do you want, Lex?” she monotonously asked, trying to feign nonchalance as she lounged against the table, head still swimming as her knees shook from the effort of standing.

“I need your help.”

With a short bark of laughter, Lena arched an eyebrow and gave him a sneer, “couldn’t you have just asked? It would’ve saved you the trouble of going through all this effort just for me to say no.”

Chuckling quietly, he held up one finger and smiled, taking a step closer to her. “Well, lucky for little old me, I don’t require you to  _ do _ anything exactly. See, I didn’t think you’d  _ willingly _ help me, which  _ deeply _ wounds me, so I planned around that fact. All I need from you … is your face.”

A frown of confusion creased Lena’s brow as she stared at her brother, a sinister, foreboding feeling make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, despite the amicable smile on his face. They could’ve been talking about the weather, for all his casual indifference, and yet there was an oppressive wrongness to the conversation, with Lena’s bound hands and lethargic movements.

“What’s  _ that _ supposed to mean?” 

Her words came out rough and uneven, not as sharp and level as she’d hoped, and she gripped the glass harder, trying to keep her expression impassive as pain lanced up her arms.

“Graves!”

Lex’s voice boomed loudly with a harsh, commanding tone and heavy footsteps emerged from the shadows and his hulking bodyguard came into view off to Lena’s left. She warily eyed the familiar burliness of Otis Graves and almost wished it was his sister before she decided that she couldn’t stomach Mercy’s sharp wit. At least Otis was a blundering oaf that wasn’t cunning enough to get under her skin, and besides, she already had her brother to fulfil that role, and it was working already.

“Right here, boss,” Otis drawled, giving Lena a thin smile, “nice to see you again, Lena. You’re looking rougher than the last time I saw you.”

“Chloroform has that effect,” Lena blithely replied, giving him a withering look before her eyes dismissed his importance and returned to her brother.

He was still looking at Otis, an almost congenial look on his face as he rocked back slightly on his heels, hands buried in his pockets. 

“Camera’s all hooked up?”

“Ready to broadcast to National City as soon as you are.”

Lena’s stomach dropped as her eyes widened a fraction, her mouth dry as she ran her tongue over chapped lips. “Broadcast?”

“Time for you to put that notorious face to good use. Give her a hand, won’t you, Graves?”

Walking off, Lex made towards the dark mouth of the doorway Otis had come in through, while the big man himself moved towards Lena and grabbed her by the crook of her elbow, pulling her along after him. Spluttering in indignation at being hauled along as she all but tripped over her own feet, Lena tried her best to pull herself from his grasp, but Otis didn’t so much as slow his pace as he chewed his gum.

He dragged her through the door and slammed it shut behind them and Lena looked around at the huge cavern they stood in. They were on a metal catwalk that ran the entire perimeter of the rough-hewn space they were in, looking like it had been carved right in the belly of a mountain, and Lena’s stomach lurched at the fifty-foot drop down to the solid rock ground below.

“Mount Norquay,” she faintly murmured, “that’s where we are.”

“Very observant,” Lex said with admiration, his footsteps ringing out on the metal as he ambled along it. 

Otis prodded her in the back and Lena scowled as she shuffled along after her brother, her footsteps limited with the rope around her ankles. It was slow going, and when they reached the switchback steps leading down to the ground, Otis slung her over his shoulder without so much as a warning, while Lena cursed him out as her vision blurred for a moment. 

Feebly kicking her feet, she wriggled and squirmed as they went down and around and down again until the bound hands that had been pinned beneath her and Otis’ shoulder were free. Dangling limply over his shoulder, arms swinging in tandem, Lena worked the long slither of glass into her hands and gripped it tightly.

They’d just made it to the floor of the wide cavern when she grit her teeth, swung her arms back over her head, and then plunged the shard into Otis’ lower back with all her might. Glass pierced cotton and skin and wedged itself deep into his muscle as he let out a loud bellow of pain and tipped her all the way over his shoulders.

Crumpling to the stone floor, Lena knocked her chin on the ground and bit down hard on her tongue, filling her mouth with the coppery taste of blood. A mewling cry of pain slipped from between her lips with a gout of blood, staining her mouth red and flecking her chin as she dragged herself along the floor, hands and feet bound and her heart pounding in her chest. 

A large hand gripped a fistful of her dark hair and Lena snarled as she was hauled to her feet, scalp prickling with pain. Otis loomed over her as he jerked her head back and grimaced, pulling the glass from the fleshy part of his back and waving it in her face as he tutted.

“Now  _ that _ wasn’t very nice.”

Spitting a mouthful of blood in his face, Lena jutted her chin forward, face red from the blood that had rushed to it upside down. Her skin felt hot and clammy with a cold sweat, fear prickling down her spine, and her eyes darted towards her brother, who was watching her with an expectant look on her face. Her eyes dropped to the tranquillizer dart gun he held loosely in one hand.

“Well? Are you going to behave so we can get started, or do you need another nap first?”

With a low growl, Lena gave him a murderous look. Ignoring it, Lex jerked his head and gestured with his tranquillizer gun for Otis to continue dragging her to the middle of the open room. Her palms smarted with the cuts she’d given herself from the glass and her tongue pulsed in her mouth, in sync with her rapid heartbeat, and Lena felt panic seize her as she wondered what Lex’s plan was.

“Cut her bonds.”

At Lex’s order, Otis pulled a long switchblade out of the depths of his pockets and sawed through the ropes until they frayed and snapped. He started at her feet, and Lex kept his watchful eyes on her with the tranquillizer gun loosely held at his side as an idle threat. Rigid and silently fuming, Lena didn’t so much as move a muscle as she was cut loose.

“Alright, now the shackles,” Lex ordered.

Lena made a low sound at the back of her throat as Otis gave her a prod towards the centre of the room. Stumbling and rankling at the way she was shoved and herded, Lena scowled and tripped over the lip of the metal grate of the slightly raised platform in the middle of the open space. Gleaming manacles lay abandoned, and Lena’s eyes darted around as she looked for an exit, her skin prickling from the heaviness of her brother’s eyes.

Making a break for it wouldn’t get her very far before a little dart pierced her skin and dropped her like a puppet with its strings cut, so she was forced to stand there and take what little pleasure she could in making Otis Graves’ job harder than it had to be. Arms folded and a petulant look on her face, she was finally forced to let Otis forcibly straighten her arm, or risk him breaking it.

Hands held before her in his tight grip, Lena sulked as he leant down to scoop up the manacles, metal clinking, and clapping them around one wrist and then the other. Letting her go with a sleazy smile, Otis ambled over to a control panel set off to the side of the wide grating and pushed a button.

At the sound of gears grinding and metal clanging above her, Lena looked up at the high ceiling and narrowed her eyes, watching as a thick chain descended, unravelling as it slowly dropped to the ground and pooled there.

“Alright, looks like you’re up,” Lex said at her shoulder, the nozzle of the tranquillizer gun digging into her back.

“What are you going to do?” Lena asked, swallowing her fear as she drifted forward.

Giving her shoulder a quick pat, Lex let out a quiet chuckle.

“Don’t worry, you’re only the bait.”

Stomach lurching, Lena sharply looked at him, a question burning on her tongue as she wondered what she was the bait for. The sound of chains rattling made her look back to Otis, who approached with the chain in hand. A thick clasp was attached to the end of it and Otis pried it open and attached it to Lena’s manacles.

“Hoist her up,” Lex softly ordered, a blank indifference in his eyes as he looked at her.

Mouth opening and closing, Lena couldn’t even manage a small cry, before Otis had pushed a button. The gears started grinding overhead again, in reverse this time, and Lena was yanked forwards as the slack length grew taut.

“Turn the cameras on,” Lex said, snapping his fingers at Otis, who hurried to do his bidding.

Lena’s feet scrabbled for purchase on the metal grating as her arms slowly raised above her head, until it felt like her shoulders were being pulled out of their sockets. And still, she was pulled upwards, her feet lifting a scant hairsbreadth off the floor as she struggled to remain grounded.

As she struggled, teeth bared as a dark look clouded her face, she watched as the camera set up across the room lit up with a tiny red light. Her feet were an inch off the ground and Lena kicked as her body heavily dangled from the hook clasped to her manacles.

“Good evening National City!” Lex crowed, spreading his hands wide a dozen feet in front of Lena.

It was with a rush of embarrassment that Lena realised that she would be in the background of the broadcast, humiliatingly dragged into mid-air for everyone to see, and she bitterly tried to swallow her pride as she stopped fighting, hanging limply with a venomous look on her face as she glared daggers into the back of her brother’s head.

“This broadcast is for one very lucky lady, who I’m hoping will be joining me in a few short minutes. Supergirl! If you’re watching this, I’m here with my  _ dear _ sister. I know you two have some unfinished business, so how about you come on down and put this lover’s quarrel to rest?”

“No!” Lena shouted, the sharp word falling from her lips before she could even stop herself. 

Her stomach dropped and she blanched as a prickle of fear made her shiver. Of course Lex would be using her as bait for Kara, because no matter how angry with her Lena was at the moment, Kara would come anyway. Even knowing it was a trap, and even knowing that Lena couldn’t bear the sight of her. She would come and hand herself over if it meant she could save her.

It made the raw pain in Lena’s chest ache as anger flared to life. She didn’t  _ want _ Kara to come and save her. She didn’t need her swooping in and being a selfless hero once more, looking at her with mournful blue eyes swimming with tears, tugging at Lena’s heartstrings as her resolve weakened. 

“Supergirl, don’t-”

Before Lena could even finish her protest, she felt a stinging pain in the side of her neck and let out a hiss of pain. Alarm shot through her at the shocking realisation that a small feathered dart was jammed into the side of her throat, and her wide eyes managed to lock onto the sight of her brother, half-turned towards her with his dart gun in hand.

Vision swimming as the world tilted, the rest of Lena’s protests dissolved into slurred mumbles as she gears and cogs kept on winding and she was hoisted up and up, darkness creeping in on her. She fell into unconsciousness with the cold feeling of drugs seeping into her system and was none the wiser to whatever Lex said after.

The pain was the first thing that registered when she came to again. A deep ache spread through her arms and shoulders and her body dangled with the heavy, limp weight of her unconscious body, pins and needles prickling in her legs. With a small groan, her head lolled, chin against her chest, and Lena winced as she sucked in a deep breath.

A pinprick of stinging pain in her neck reminded her of the fact that she’d been drugged again, and by the feel of things, Lena had been dangling there in the cold cavern for hours. Trying to open heavy eyelids, her mind sluggishly tried to cobble everything together. Her brother. The broadcast. Supergirl.  _ Kara. _

Struggling, Lena managed to open her eyes to slits, listening to the slow creaking of the chain she was attached to in the silence of the vast room. Her brother clearly wasn’t there, and neither was Otis Graves, unless he was dozing below while supposedly keeping an eye on her. But no, as Lena listened she realised it wasn’t  _ quite _ empty.

It took more energy than she thought she had to raise her head from her chin and open her eyes, lashes fluttering as quick as butterfly wings, to take in the chain a few feet away from her with a pair of red boots at eye level. Dimly, Lena was aware of the fact that there had only been one chain when she’d been strung up like a meat carcass at an abattoir, and she let her drooping chin settle back against her chest as her eyes travelled down the length of steel to land on the figure hanging from the end of it by their feet. 

“Kara,” she sighed, her voice gravelly and thick.

The blue pants were unmistakable, as was the red cape that obscured the hero’s head as it cascaded towards the ground. With a painfully slow creak, the chain rotated as Kara’s arms started paddling wildly, and Lena watched with a glum, weary expression as blonde curls and a red face became visible below her.

“Oh! You’re awake!” Kara said, her voice garbled and strained, yet still full of relief.

Lena let out a thin sigh as she limply dangled, manacles painfully biting into her wrists as her cut palms smarted. Things weren’t looking great for her at the moment and the fact that Kara had somehow ended up chained upside down beside her only further added salt to Lena’s wounds.

“What are you doing here?” Lena groaned.

“Oh … you know … just hanging out.”

Mustering an even louder groan at the terrible joke, Lena sighed heavily as a faint smile twitched at the corners of her lips. And then she remembered that she was supposed to be mad at Kara and fought to stamp down any fondness she had for her friend. 

“Shouldn’t you have escaped by now?” Lena asked, her voice bitter and full of contempt, and no small amount of wounded accusation, “I would’ve thought you’d have relished the thought of playing the hero again. Saving your witless, naïve friend and having a good laugh about it behind my back. Or were you waiting for me to wake up first so you could gloat?”

_ “Gloat?” _ Kara choked, sounding mildly insulted. “Lena, when have I  _ ever _ gloated about saving you?”

Sniffing, Lena roughly cleared her throat, aching for a glass of water after her multiple druggings. “I’m sure there’s been at least once-”

“Oh, come  _ on. _ That’s not true! I _like_ saving you. Okay, well, no, actually, I don’t. I  _ hate _ it when you get yourself in trouble, but I’m glad I’m here to help.”

“Yeah?” Lena snarkily replied, “well, I never asked for your help. Ever. So you don’t need to concern yourself with me anymore. We’re not even friends now.”

“Well, you’re  _ my _ friend.”

Huffing, Lena struggled to keep her anger in check as she bitingly replied. “That’s not how friends  _ work, _ Kara. You can’t be friends with someone who isn’t friends with  _ you.” _

“Okay, but I still think you’re my friend.”

“We’re  _ not _ friends!”

“I know, but it’s okay if you’re mad at me; friends fight sometimes. I still love you and-”

Her words felt like a little knife twisting in Lena’s chest and her cheeks flushed red with burning humiliation at how she’d been foolishly blind this whole time. Twisting against the manacles, Lena rattled them as she blinked back the burning feeling in her eyes.

“Okay, we’re done here. Lex! Lex, I’ve finished being your bait now! Congratulations, you caught her, now let me go! You can’t just  _ leave _ me here with her!”

With a soft sigh, Kara tilted her head up and grimaced at Lena as she watched her kick and scowl, fighting against her shackles. “It’s no use. He left about two hours ago.”

“Then why are you still here?” Lena snapped.

“Oh, uh, he injected me with kryptonite. A  _ big _ dose. I was out of it for a few hours. I have to hand it to him, he’s clever.”

“No, you’re just an idiot for even coming here.”

Kara let out a small chuckle and splayed her dangling hands in a helpless gesture, “fair, but, unfortunately, you’re stuck with me for now. So, what’s the plan? How are we getting out?”

“There is no  _ we.” _

“Well, no offence, Lena, but we’re both just as stuck as each other, so … it looks like you need me.”

Snorting derisively, Lena let her eyes drift around the room, searching for anything that could help her. He was smart, leaving her dangling there in the open space, away from any tools that could help her, and she silently cursed him as she dangled, swaying back and forth.

She glanced down at Kara and narrowed her eyes, taking in the greyish tint to her taut face, trying not to show how much pain she was in. Threads of green veins of kryptonite spread up her neck and jaw and Lena’s heart spasmed with concern.

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t  _ let _ my brother drug you, we wouldn’t be in this mess to start with.”

“Or, maybe if you hadn’t gotten  _ yourself _ drugged, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I never asked you to come!” Lena exclaimed. “I would’ve been perfectly fine on my own. Better, in fact. At least it would be quiet enough for me to think.”

Sighing, Kara gave her a mournful look - that one that Lena was dreading seeing - and Lena looked away, gritting her teeth as a muscle twitched in her jaw.

“Lena, look … I’m sorry. Really. About this, about … everything. I know you’re mad at me, and you can  _ be _ mad - I understand how you feel, and I don’t begrudge you your feelings - but I don’t think it’s wise for us to bicker when we’re  _ trapped _ here, dangling forty feet above the ground, and your brother could be back any minute. I’m sure he’ll let you go, eventually, but I’m not keen on being dissected like a frog in biology class. And … well, I’m  _ hoping _ you don’t want that to happen to me either.”

“Well … maybe you’re wrong,” Lena haughtily replied.

“Oh.”

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, each shift in their movements as they tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible while hanging as they were. Guilt clawed at Lena’s throat and she shifted uncomfortably, her body aching from the strain of her arms holding her body weight until she couldn’t take it anymore. Hesitantly clearing her throat, she glanced down at Kara’s red face.

“I don’t want that,” she quietly admitted. “I don’t- I don’t want you to be hurt. I’m just … mad.”

“I know,” Kara softly sighed, seeming to deflate slightly, looking slight and meek and uncharacteristically unheroic. “I should’ve told you. I  _ tried _ to tell you. More times than I can count.”

Swallowing the lump that constricted her throat, Lena sniffed. “Yeah, well, that’s irrelevant.”

“Yeah.”

“If- if you could go back again … do it all over … would you tell me?”

Kara was silent for a few moments, each one of them noted by the thundering in Lena’s chest as she waited for a reply with bated breath. She was nervous, perhaps even scared, worried that Kara didn’t feel even a flicker of regret for not telling her sooner. Sure, she might’ve regretted Lex being the one to reveal her secret to Lena, but that didn’t mean she regretted  _ not _ telling Lena beforehand. It had taken Lena’s snide comments at the Pulitzer award ceremony to guiltily coax the truth out of Kara, weeks after Lex had revealed the truth. That was clearly the moment that Kara had been ready to tell her.

“There are … a lot of things I would’ve told you.”

Lena’s mouth opened and closed as her stomach clenched slightly. She licked her dry lips and drew in a shallow breath, which hitched in her throat.

“Like what?”

“I- I think it’s too late now. I think you might hate me more because of it.”

“I think I might hate you more for secrecy,” Lena retorted.

Laughing, Kara dissolved into a fit of coughing, her whole body shaking as she hung by her feet. Eventually, it subsided, leaving her face impossibly redder, and Lena eyed her with worry.

“That’s fair. Hey, how about a deal? I’ll tell you once we get out of here.”

“There you go with this  _ we _ again,” Lena snorted, a wry smile twisting her lips. “How long until the kryptonite wears off enough for you to be strong enough to use your powers?”

Kara’s lips pressed together in a grim line as she thought, a flicker of pain running across her face as the redness from her coughing fit subsided slightly, returning her pallor back to the mottled pink and grey. She didn’t look good, and Lena didn’t trust that she’d be able to get them out.

“I think- I think he gave me just enough to keep me powerless until he gets back. Any more and it’d kill me. My powers will come back when there’s less in my system, but I think he’ll be back by then. He calculated the dose perfectly. I think he’ll be back within the hour, or I’ll be strong enough to fight it off soon.”

“So … what do we do?”

“I can’t- I can feel it burning inside me. I don’t think I’ll be much help.”

Quietly harrumphing, Lena went back to scanning the room, trying to think of something, anything to get them down. Her arms tingled and ached and she couldn’t do anything but kick and struggle. Frustration welled up inside her as she flopped about, letting out a quiet snarl.

Looking up again, she frowned at the manacles, and the chain. And the chain, which wrapped around a thick reel, hidden amongst the metal supports. A spark of an idea crossed Lena’s mind and she stared thoughtfully above her, eyes running the length of the supports, which crossed the roof of the cavern, reinforcing it. And from the very edge of the room, where the beams were drilled into the walls, it was a ten-foot drop onto the catwalk that circled it. 

“I think … I know how,” Lena hesitantly said. 

“You do?” Kara blurted out, lifting herself slightly to peer up at Lena with hope on her face.

Nodding, Lena met her gaze. “It’s … improbable. For me, anyway. But you can’t … so I guess I can- I can try. It’s not like we have any other options.”

“Is it dangerous?”

Snorting, Lena gave her a dour look. “Hardly. But … well, I never really excelled at gym class.”

Kara paused for a heartbeat, brow creasing with confusion, “I’m not following.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to. You can just hang tight.”

“Funny.”

“Try not to get your hopes up; my upper-body strength is … non-existent.”

With a weak chuckle, Kara tried to keep her head raised to watch as Lena used the manacles around her wrists to haul herself up. Teeth grit, arms trembling, she managed to haul herself up until her elbows were bent, before her arms were shaking so badly that she had to let herself drop back down, pain jolting through her stiff shoulders.

_ “Fuck.” _

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Kara softly told her, wincing with an empathetic look.

Blinking rapidly, Lena breathed sharply, her hands clammy and glanced back down at Kara. Drawing in a deep breath, Lena gave her a reassuring nod, taking in the wan smile Kara gave her in encouragement, and with renewed determination, she hauled herself up again.

A vein popped out on her forehead as she strained herself, a cold sweat covering her skin, blistering her cut palms from the rough friction of the metal, yet she didn’t stop. Teeth grinding together, Lena managed to pull herself up, hand over hand, up one foot and then two, the chain growing slack in her grasp as she grew higher and higher. 

Sweat ran down her face as she breathed heavily, arms threatening to give out at any moment as her hands burned from the tight grip she kept on the chain. Eventually, there was enough slack for Lena to hook her foot through the loop her manacles and the chain made. She was still five feet from the beams above her, and she closed her eyes as she rested for a moment, holding her weight in the loop she’d created, shakily exhaling.

“Lena? Are you okay?”

“Oh, just fantastic!” she bitingly replied, her voice trembling as she clung to her spot on the chain for dear life.

One slip and she’d jolt painfully back down to where she’d started, most likely ripping her arms from her shoulder sockets and ruining all chances of them escaping. Steadying herself with a few breaths, Lena opened her eyes.

“I’m fine. Almost there.”

“Okay. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Rolling her eyes at the repeated concern, Lena grimaced as she reached up and pulled herself up another few inches, wrapping her legs around the chain to give herself some leverage.

After a few more minutes of struggling and puffing from the exertion, Lena reached up and struck solid metal. Relief slammed into her as she realised she was at the top, fifty feet above the ground, and she looked down with a wan smile on her face as she grasped for the edge. She fumbled for a moment, her slippery hand scrabbling for purchase as her stomach dropped and her vision blurred with dizziness.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Lena clutched at the chain again, waiting for her breathing and heartbeat to settle back down before she attempted reaching the beam again. With one final heft, she hooked her arm up onto the wide support and swung herself up onto the beam, right beside the reel of the coiled chain.

Straddling the beam, Lena blew a damp lock of hair out of her red face and managed to painfully bend her wrist inwards to fumble with the clasp. Worming her way free of the end of the chain, Lena exhaled heavily, sagging with relief at her relative freedom. It was short-lived, however, once she realised she was fifty feet above the ground, hands still chained by the manacles, which would greatly inhibit her movements.

“I’m-”

“Don’t look down!” Kara softly called up to her as Lena leant over, an anxious edge to her words.

With a strained laugh, Lena’s head spun with a sudden bout of vertigo, before she quickly pulled back, heeding Kara’s warning. Blinking back black spots, she focused on the distant end of the beam she was straddling and felt a surge of panic well up at the prospect of shuffling along the length of it. Yet Lena was never one to shy away from something that scared her.

Wiping her sleeve across her forehead, she roughly cleared her throat and scooted forward. With a leg dangling over each side and the chains scraping along the beam, Lena slowly eased herself towards the edge. The minutes dragged by in tense silence, broken only by the quiet groaning of Kara’s chain, as she slowly rotated and swayed back and forth, and the rattling of Lena’s.

When she made it to the end, above the safety of the grated catwalk and a marginally smaller fall, Lena felt weak with the comforting knowledge that she would perhaps break a few bones at the worst if she lost her balance and pitched off the beam. Her arms were all but useless by that point, painfully stiff and rubbery, and her whole body hurt as she swung herself over one side and dangled there. 

Her feet were five feet off the ground and as she clutched the beam, her upper body strength failed her, finally giving in to her sore muscles as they begged for a respite. Falling hard to her knees, Lena bit back a grunt of pain, low at the back of her throat as her lips pressed together in a flat line. No doubt she would be covered in all manner of bruises later on, but none of that mattered then. She had more pressing concerns to worry about.

Hands still chained together, she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled towards the stairs. Each footstep was heavy and lurching, still fighting off the drug-induced haze that clung to the edges of her mind as her shoulders sagged. She felt drunk, with a foul temper to rival that which accompanied the regret of one of her hellish hangovers, and it was with the blundering clumsiness of an infant that she went down and around the switchback stairs.

Shirt clinging to her sweat-soaked skin, Lena finally made it to the ground floor and would’ve been quite glad to keel over on the spot, to give in with gravity and let her body fall limply onto the cold stone as she succumbed to her exhaustion. But Kara was still dangling by her feet with an unhealthy cast to her face as green traced its way up her neck. A flicker of pity ran through Lena as she looked at the disturbing figure of her old friend. It just looked  _ wrong _ to see Kara so incapacitated.

Yet, as she moved towards her, a grave look on her face as she steeled herself to free the woman who had broken her heart and her trust, Kara let out a mewling cry. Pausing, Lena’s eyes met Kara’s wide ones, seeing the panic in them.

“The hangar,” Kara rasped, “it’s opening.”

Stomach lurching, Lena firmly nodded and rushed towards the panel that stood off to the side of the slightly raised platform, listening to the choked sounds of alarm that Kara was making high above her.

“Lena, you need to get out of here.  _ Now.” _

“Yeah, well, we’re not friends right now so I don’t have to listen to you,” Lena flatly retorted, heavily bracing herself against the small rectangle full of buttons as she reached the panel.

Her eyes flickered across them until she found the release button and she quickly slammed her fist into it. The gears ground together as cogs clanged, and with a sudden loudness that set Lena’s teeth on edge, she watched as Kara slowly descended. It was slow going and she feared that her brother would burst in at any moment, yet she stayed anyway, fidgeting with restless agitation.

Lips wordlessly murmuring encouragements, Lena moved towards the centre of the room and watched as Kara was lowered down to her until her limp arms dangled only a few feet from the ground and her face was just slightly lower than her own. And it was then that Lena heard the not as distant as she would’ve liked sound of a door slamming.

_ “Run.” _

Panic blossomed in her chest at the very real fear of her brother catching her mid escape attempt, but Lena realised in that split second moment that she met Kara’s eyes, the resignation and understanding in them, that she wasn’t afraid for herself. Kara wanted her to go, to save herself, but he didn’t  _ want _ Lena, and Lena would rather die than let her brother have something that was hers.

Kara’s hands brushed the ground and she crumpled as her body followed, no graceful landing for her as gravity dragged her downwards and the chain willingly grew slack. Her feet were still in the air when Lena wrenched the clasp from the manacles around her ankles, and her legs slammed heavily on the metal grate, eliciting a loud clanging sound.

Without pause, Lena reached down and grabbed a fistful of that damned red cape and dragged it up, giving Kara no time to climb to her feet before she hauled her after her, the hero’s feet scrabbling for purchase as she was dragged behind Lena. She managed to get her feet under her and immediately pitched into Lena’s back, which earned her a sharp look as Lena bristled with anger. 

Reluctantly pulling Kara half over her shoulder, Lena struggled with the heaviness of the spent woman, her bound hands limiting her ability to prop her up any other way, but they made it to a small service door in the far corner as quick as possible. It wasn’t locked, and her brother’s arrogance made her let out a quiet scoff of laughter. Lena almost thought she should be insulted by his low opinion of her chances of escape, but she was too grateful that he’d underestimated her wiliness to dwell on it too long. 

Pulling Kara into the narrow hallway after her, Lena locked the door behind her and fell heavily against it, allowing herself a brief moment to catch her breath as Kara dropped to the floor. Looking down at her, Lena felt the dank coldness of the hallway cool the sweat on her brow, and she gruffly cleared her throat as she pushed off the door and sank to a crouch beside Kara’s pale face, luminous even in the gloomy dark.

“We need to keep moving. If we circle around them and get to the hangar, we can steal the helicopter.”

“I didn’t know you could fly,” Kara faintly murmured, “I thought you were afraid of flying.”

With a shaky, breathy laugh, Lena pulled her to her feet again, a cold smile curling her lips, “I can’t, and I am. But it’s not like we have any other choice, and if I can fly a thirty-first-century spaceship I think I can manage a shitty little helicopter.”

“Fair point, but how do we get to the helipad?”

Huffing with impatience and no small amount of irritation, Lena gave Kara a sharp look in the dark. “If you stopped asking questions for a minute I’d be able to remember the blueprints of this place.”

“Right, yes, sorry. Continue.”

Closing her eyes, Lena’s lips moved wordlessly as her drug-clouded mind tried to envision a path through the warren of tunnels, air shafts and hallways that made up the mountain base, eyes rolling beneath closed lids. They snapped back open as her face hardened.

“This way.”

Without waiting for a response off Kara, Lena set off down the left branch of the narrow tunnel, trying to shift Kara’s arm around her while her bound hands made the task infinitely harder than it had to be. They made for an awkward, stumbling duo, and Lena’s heart pounded in her chest, her panicked breathing loud in the stillness of the dark tunnel, afraid that they were going to be found any moment now. It wouldn’t take long for her brother to reach the cavern, and there were only so many doors leading out of the large room. 

The made a left at the next intersection and then a right turn halfway down that hallway, Lena squinting through the darkness to make out the yawning black mouths of connecting tunnels in the bowels of the mountain as Kara stayed on her feet by sheer stubbornness alone, head lolling against Lena’s shoulder in a way that didn’t look the slightest bit comfortable.

Finding a steel door to a stairwell at the end of a hallway, Lena exhaled sharply as a brief flicker of triumph swept through her, and she gave the handle a hefty tug, hinges squeaking and setting her teeth on edge as a wan, flickering fluorescent light spilt out of the stairwell. Pushing Kara inside, she dragged the door closed again, shuddering at the excruciating sound, and locked them inside the tight space.

“Can you walk, or will I have to drag you?”

Kara weakly laughed, her eyelashes fluttering as it died off and her face stiffened and then twisted with a look of pain. Her breathing was shallow and Lena’s hands nervously fluttered around her as she bit back a quiet curse, feeling helpless and angry.

“Come on,” she murmured, feeling time ticking by too quickly.

She managed to half drag Kara onto her back, both hands wrapped tightly around the Kryptonian’s arm, and staggered up the first step as she lugged the dead weight behind her. Teetering backwards as Kara dragged her down, Lena quietly swore and hunched over, huffing and puffing her way up another two steps as Kara’s red boots skimmer over metal. Each footstep and thumb of limp feet dragging rang out loudly in the confined space and Lena silently prayed that no one heard them through the thickness of the closed doors.

Each step was painfully sore and the only thing that kept Lena going was the fact that Kara desperately needed help, and without her, there was no telling what her brother would do to the alien. As much as Lena hurt from Kara’s betrayal, she would risk everything for her, and she would never leave her behind. So she carried on.

It was only three flights of stairs, but it felt like an eternity when they collapsed to the ground on the landing of the fourth floor. They were still one floor shy of the elevators that would take them up to the helipad carved onto the top of the mountainside, yet Lena knew it would be predictable to walk right out into her brother’s arms. Instead, she needed to come up with an unpredictable plan that would buy them enough time to sneak upstairs.

Allowing herself a minute to catch her breath and relieve herself of the heavy burden of Kara’s half-conscious body, Lena lay splayed at the top of the stairs, the heels of her palms digging into her eyes as cold seeped into her sweaty back from the floor. A headache pulsed at her temples and her mouth was so dry that it was hard to swallow.

“Lena.”

She let her head loll to the side to look at Kara’s pale face, her flushed cheek mercifully pressed against the cold metal of the landing. 

“Lena,” Kara murmured again, her bloodless lips barely moving as she rasped.

“We’re almost there,” Lena glumly tried to reassure her, her voice barely a murmur as she looked at the fine tracery of green and the deep purple bruises beneath Kara’s closed hollow eyes.

Drawing in a shuddering, shallow breath, Kara’s dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she forced her eyes open, staring right at Lena as they lay side by side beneath the sickly glow of the lights.

“You need to leave me. You need to go-”

With a low, scornful sound at the back of her throat, Lena abruptly sat up, smouldering anger growing hotter inside her as she raked a hand through her damp hair. 

“Stop that,” Lena snapped, scrubbing a hand over her face as she blinked back the gritty dryness of her eyes. “We’re almost there.”

Shaking her head, Kara let out a listless sigh, “he’s too smart. I’m just holding you back.”

_ “Shut up,”  _ Lena quietly hissed, pushing herself to her feet, “shut the fuck up, Kara. I am  _ not _ leaving you here.”

Fumbling for the door handle, Lena winced as she eased it open, hinges letting out a slow, resounding squeak as she poked her head out into the dark hallway. A shaft of light showed that it was one of the wider utility hallways, tiled with reinforced beams and smooth stone walls, yet the lights had been cut. Her brother was clearly hoping to blind her and turn her around in the dark until she was so lost and confused that she wound up right back in his hands again. With a burning determination, Lena pressed her lips into a flat line and turned to go back inside for Kara when she paused.

“ _ Lena _ .”

The sound of her name, drawn-out and sing-song made her stiffen, half-turned towards Kara, and she felt her stomach knot itself in fear. Otis’ voice echoed down the hallway, some ways away but close enough to kindle worry inside her. Close enough that he’d heard the door opening.

“I know you’re there,” he called out, his voice harder and colder this time, growing closer. “Come out. It’ll hurt less if you cooperate.”

Hesitating for a brief moment, Lena considered their options and then ducked fully back inside, reaching down and pulling Lena to her feet. Blue eyes met her frantic gaze, wide with fear, and Lena gave Kara a strained smile, thin and unconvincing.

“Come on. We’re almost there.”

“Lena,” Kara whispered, a plea in her voice.

With a muffled grunt of pain, Lena bent her knees and lifted Kara over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift, staggering under the crushing weight of her as her knees threatened to buckle. She found her footing and her strength though and stepped out into the dark hallway, slamming the door shut behind her and plunging her into a suffocating blackness. 

_ “Ha!  _ I can hear you,” Otis called out, gleeful and closer.

Teeth grinding painfully together, Lena went in the opposite direction, trying to put some distance between her and her brother’s hound to buy herself a few minutes, and no sooner had she taken the first right did a yellow beam of torchlight cut through the darkness at the other end of the hallway. 

Huddled in the dark with Kara’s burning heat pressed against her sweaty body, Lena felt like she might be sick, her skin slick and warm, her fear radiating from her in nauseating waves, a malingering odour that was far from encouraging. And she just stood there, leaning against the cool wall as she listened to those footsteps come closer, one at a time, a funeral dirge that she waited to come to an end.

Throat constricted, she silently wound her hands into the fabric of Kara’s cape and listened to Otis approach, waiting for just the right moment. And then a beam of yellow light cut across her face, illuminating her sickly pallor and wide, hunted eyes. And beyond the blinding halo of light was the grinning face of her captor, looking like he’d already won.

But what he wasn’t planning on was Lena playing right into his hands. Quite literally as her eyes snapped to his in a flat stare and she forcefully shoved Kara’s limp figure into his arms, letting go of the cape and watching her stumble into him.

“What-”

As Otis dropped his torch in his haste to capture the main prize, cradling her with surprising gentleness as he tried not to let Kara collapse to the floor, Lena drew her right arm back and punched him right across the face in what she thought was a spectacular right hook. Hot blood sprayed across her face as she broke his nose and he let out a howl of pain.

In his agony, he actually  _ did _ let Kara collapse to the floor, and Lena winced as she watched her go down like a sack of stones, head striking the tiled floor. Giving her a moment of sympathy, she then turned her attention back to their attacker and flew at him with a vengeance. Despite her exhaustion, she managed to dig into her reserves, unleashing her fury on the stumbling, blinded oaf, getting an arm around his throat and yanking him down.

She went down with him, her elbow slamming into the floor as Otis fell on top of her, the breath rushing from her lungs in a strangled hiss as he pinned her beneath his mass. Keeping her manacles wrapped around his neck, Lena pulled tightly as he struggled to get up, his blood-slick hand scrabbling at the chain cutting off his airway.

Teeth bared in a frightening look, Lena held fast, counting the slow seconds until Otis Graves stopped struggling and went limp, passing into unconsciousness with no more fight. Lena struggled to push him off her and floundered for a moment like a drowning fish as she freed herself from beneath him, choking on air, before she used the wall to guide herself to her feet. Turning on him, Lena stared at his slack face, paused, and then kicked him squarely across the jaw for good measure, not wanting him to rise again. She wasn’t sure how much fight she had left in her now.

Wiping her face on her grimy sleeve, Lena quickly remembered Kara and rushed to her side, roughly shaking her.  _ “Kara. _ Get up.”

“I-”

The word came out as a faint sigh as Kara exhaled softly, head lolling as Lena tried to prod her to move.

_ “Get up! _ I’m sick of playing the hero. I need some  _ help _ . I need you to walk now.”

“Walk,” Kara hummed, “mm, okay. Okay, Lena.”

_ “Thank you,” _ Lena exasperatedly replied, a near-hysterical edge to her words.

Kara was little help as Lena managed to yank her upright again, swaying on her feet as she blinked owlishly, coming back to herself, yet she  _ did _ stay on her feet nonetheless and managed a shuffling gait as Lena coaxed her arm around her shoulder so Kara could lean on her. It was manageable and easier than carrying her dead weight around, and Lena felt a spark of hope flare to life in her chest as their escape grew more imminent.

All that was left was to sneak past her brother, and that was no small feat. Mind racing as she tried to guess his move, Lena led them through a warren of passages, to the back corner of the mountain, furthest from the helipad, and into the stairwell to lurch up the last set of stairs. 

If Lex heard the faint creak of the door opening, he didn’t appear, and Lena quickly led them down a wide hallway. The lights were still on up on that level, giving her hope that her brother wasn’t up there waiting for her, yet it made the creeping journey easier.

The fifth floor of the fort held an assortment of supplies, crates and stacked pallets crowding hallways, doors for supply rooms giving them multiple hiding spots as she dropped Kara off at convenient resting spots to scout ahead, poking her dark head around corners, green eyes watchful for her brother’s form. So far, there had been no sign of him.

Nothing but closets of janitorial supplies and medical equipment, crates of bombs and guns, cans of chemicals and buckets of bullets. All sort of militaristic equipment, and rations for them to duck behind as they moved through wide canteens, empty of any guards or Lex.

Finally, they were only a couple of hallways away from the airlocked doors sealing the hangar from the inside of the base, and Lena’s nerves were frayed as she jitterily pushed Kara into a janitor’s closet, sinking to the floor beside the prone alien as she gave herself a quick respite before risking the final confrontation with her brother.

Chained hands wrapped around her knees, Lena exhaled slowly, shoulders drooping as her chest caved in, a throbbing pressure behind her eyes as she stared hollowly at the closed metal door.

“Kara?”

“Mm?”

“Did he- did he say what he was going to get before he left?”

With a weak laugh, Kara nodded, head resting against the edge of a packed shelf of bleach. “Yeah, he took the time to brag a little. He was going to steal your Harun-El.”

“Harun-El,” Lena murmured to herself, brow crumpling with confusion before her expression smoothed itself out and her eyes went wide with sickening understanding. She turned to look at Kara, biting down hard on her lip as she met her grim stare. “He wants to clone you. He wants an army of you.”

With a grave nod, Kara swallowed thickly, faintly shrugging her shoulders as if she couldn’t manage any more than that. Lena bit back a curse as she resisted the urge to pound the floor with her already bruised fist in her frustration.

“Lena?”

“What?” she wearily asked, a mournful look on her face as she turned to face Kara again.

With a thin smile, Kara raised her eyebrows slightly, “I think- I think it’s time I told you now. Told you all the things I wish I’d said before.”

Quietly scoffing, Lena turned to look straight ahead again, looking up at the ceiling as she rested her head back against the shelf, her manacles resting in her lap as her shoulder lightly brushed against Kara’s.

“You said  _ after _ we get out of here.”

Sniffing, Kara let out a short laugh, void of any humour. “We both know there’s not a good chance of that happening.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Lena snarkily replied, bristling slightly at the insinuation that she wouldn’t be able to beat her brother.

“Oh, I’m confident that  _ you _ could.”

_ “Stop that,” Lena  _ hissed, rounding on Kara with unbridled anger, her cheeks pink as her eyes shone brightly, “stop trying to get me to leave you here. You wouldn’t even  _ be _ here if you weren’t so  _ stupid.” _

Flinching, Kara wrinkled her nose and grimaced, shrinking back against the shelf. There was a peaceful look of resignation on her ashen face as she sat there, knees drawn up to her chest, looking like a sad cosplayer playing at being a real hero.

“He doesn’t want me, he wants  _ you,” _ Lena quietly exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears as her voice broke. “He wants  _ you. _ He’s  _ always _ wanted you. If you had only- if you hadn’t-  _ why did you do that?  _ Why did you  _ have to do that? _ We wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d just told me-”

She broke off as the urge to cry rose within her and Lena tried to swallow it, stamping it down as her voice cracked and a hot tear traced its way down her cheek. She angrily brushed it aside, mouth a thin line of anger as she looked away from Kara.

Until the featherlight touch of Kara’s warm hand cupped her cheek and Lena’s eyes were drawn back to hers. Her eyes were brimming with sadness, with so much pain that it felt like a physical blow to Lena’s chest to see it there. And she knew that she loved her, and that she hadn’t been talking about Lex a moment ago - not really - but she was so hurt that she couldn’t bring herself to look at her, tearing her eyes away even as Kara tenderly stroked her cheek.

“I love you,” Kara whispered, her voice so quiet, so gentle, so soft that Lena pretended that she didn’t hear her, even as her stomach lurched.

“We need to go,” Lena flatly replied.

She tried to climb to her feet but Kara’s wiry fingers gripped her hand and brought her back down, even though Lena would’ve been able to break her humanly frail grip in a heartbeat, given her current state.

“You give me courage … and hope. Even on my worst days. The love I feel for you, it’s- it’s stronger than any weapon or armour. You make me feel stronger than my superpowers ever could. You’re my yellow sun and I- and I love you. I love you. It’s as simple as that, but it’s anything  _ but _ simple. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to love someone who hates me, because it hurts and I miss you. I miss you all the time and I don’t feel strong without you. I feel weak and empty and, if I’m being honest, despite the circumstances, this is the happiest I’ve felt in weeks. Because you’re here. At least you’re here with me, at the end of it all. That’s a consolation at least.”

“Yeah, well, save the eulogy you’ve prepared for yourself because I’m not letting my brother rip you apart and kill you,” Lena roughly replied, her voice gravelly and wavering, betraying her attempt at nonchalance. “But for what it’s worth, I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you at all, and I wish that I could. Maybe I would be able to leave you here if that was the case, but, given the circumstances, and the fact that I  _ don’t _ hate you, I have to lug your ass around and save you, because … despite my best efforts, I happen to love you too.”

The confession slipped out softly, a sudden tenderness softening Lena’s anger as the words she’d locked away for so long fell from her lips, startling them both. And as Kara’s face split into a tearful smile, bright enough to overshadow the sun, Lena felt a painful tightening in her chest, before she tore her gaze eyes.

“And now I have to save you. Wait here.”

“Lena-”

Shooting to her feet, Lena squared her shoulders and pulled open the door, pausing to reach for a long wooden handle that hadn’t been attached to the mop head yet, gripping it tightly in her hand and nodding reassuringly to herself. Ignoring Kara’s quiet pleas, she stepped out into the hallway, gently let the door click closed behind her and set off down the hallway towards the hangar.

Down two more hallways and through a small antechamber, she finally turned onto the wide, well-lit stretch before the closed hangar doors and froze. Just before the sealed doors, her brother stopped his pacing and turned to face her, a smile stretching across his face as he spread his hands out.

“Ah,  _ finally! _ There you are. And where’s our good friend, Miss Danvers? Is she hiding somewhere? I can’t imagine she’s in good shape right now.”

“You can’t have her,” Lena flatly replied, her tone frosty with a low warning. “She’s  _ mine.” _

“Tut tut, Lena,” Lex chided her, “you never did like to share your toys when you were little.”

Sneering at him, she gripped the broom handle tightly in her hand as she held it down at her side. Lex laughed as he saw her knuckles whiten, and he raised his eyebrows, waving her closer.

“Come to fight me, have you?”

“I took care of Graves well enough,” Lena said with a cocky smile, raising her chin in a haughty manner, “and we both know I’ve always been better at getting my hands dirty than you. Do you have any more guns around for me to play with?”

Chuckling, Lex gestured helplessly, “I’m all out, I’m afraid. I didn’t want to tempt you again. I know how easy it is to tip you over the edge. Absolutely  _ no _ self-control. It’s why you never excelled at any one thing. A real jack of all trades.”

“Well, you know how the saying goes,” Lena flippantly replied, “better than a master of one.”

She advanced slowly as she spoke, and Lex drifted towards her as well, both of them retaining an air of indifference as the tension between them hung heavily. Observing his casual stance for a moment, Lena cocked her head to the side and deliberated, before her arm snapped out, wooden pole cracking against her brother’s arm, sending him reeling with shock.

Advancing, Lena swung two-handed, as if wielding a baseball bat and whacked him across his hunched back, hard enough that the pole snapped in half, leaving her holding a splintered length of wood, two feet long. The rest of it loudly clattered to the floor, and Lena felt buoyed by the success of her attack, how Lex clutched his arm and stood doubled over, letting her arrogance get the better of her as she advanced again.

Clutching the remainder of the pole in her hand, remembering some of her old fencing tactics, she warily eyed her brother as she inched closer, torso sideways as she waited to parry Lex’s surprise attack that was surely coming. It wasn’t until she lunged inside his guard that he struck, managing to grasp the splintered pole and hold her fast, before he backhanded her across the face.

It was a heavy-handed blow, and, given her weakened state, Lena pitched sideways, lurching in staggering footsteps as pain blossomed across her cheek and mouth. Tasting blood on her tongue as she licked her lips, Lena braced herself against the wall as she blinked back black spots that danced across her vision, feeling the floor tilt under her feet.

Before she could recover, Lex grabbed a fistful of her hair and sharply jerked her hair back, making Lena bare her teeth in pain. With a casual sweep of his foot, he kicked a leg out from under her and sent Lena down to one knee as he loomed over her. Breathing heavily, she grit her teeth as he painfully forced her to look up at him, a cold smile twisting his mouth.

“You really should’ve learnt by now that if you stand against me you  _ will _ lose,” Lex mused, amusement colouring his words.

His eyes flashed with satisfaction as Lena knelt before him, his shadow falling across her face as her cheek turned a livid red from where he’d struck her. 

“Maybe,” Lena said with a breathless laugh, eyes shining bright with stubbornness as she jerked her chin forward, “but you’ll never truly beat me, and that's good enough for me.”

With a scornful sound, Lex curled his lip at her with contempt, his brow furrowing with annoyance. “Damn you, Lena. Why do you always try so hard to be  _ good? _ They’re never going to accept you, they’re never going to  _ understand _ you. Not like  _ I _ do.”

“Maybe you’re right; they might never understand me. But if you think that I’m going to help you build an  _ army-” _

“Think about it!” Lex urged her, his voice low and insistent, “imagine an army of a thousand Supergirl’s. All of them clones of the original, only blank slates to mould as you will. They would never lie to you - they could be everything you wanted her to be.”

With a quiet laugh, Lena gave him a small smile, “go ahead, make a thousand Supergirl’s; they’re nothing to me. There’s only one Kara Danvers, and you can’t recreate her in a lab.”

Pulling back slightly, Lex gave her a mystified look, bewilderment clouding his eyes as he struggled to understand, to make sense of  _ why _ Lena would refuse him. He could give her everything she wanted, and still, she turned her nose up at his offer.

“You still choose her, even now, knowing that she lied to you all this time. She  _ lied _ to you, and you shot  _ me.” _

“I will  _ always _ choose her,” Lena quietly snarled, “I’ll pick her over anyone, every time. No matter what. No matter if we’re not friends or- or if I’m mad at her, because-”

Lena was interrupted by the dull sound of metal ringing and watched as her brother’s eyes rolled up into his head, just the whites visible, before he slumped unconscious to the ground, his grip in her hair going slack. Still, on one knee, Lena blinked in surprise, her eyes locking onto Kara’s wide blue gaze as the Kryptonian stood there with a dented metal bucket in her hands. She looked sheepish and guilty, but still overwhelmingly relieved, letting the bucket crash to the tiled floor as she fell to her knees before Lena, sagging with relief and a lack of energy.

“I told you to stay put,” Lena hoarsely said, feeling sickeningly feeble as her spent body slumped and she fell to her other knee.

With a weak smile, Kara shrugged and ran a hand over her waxen face, hand trembling from the exertion. “You said you were sick of playing the hero. I thought I’d give you a break.”

A stuttering laugh worked its way past Lena’s swollen, numb lips as she eyed her brother’s unconscious body. There was no telling how long he would be out for, and Lena was struck with a sense of urgency as she forced herself to her feet, wincing as her body protested, yet still, she didn’t falter, her headstrong willfulness persevering through the dull ache that suffused her body.

“We need to get out of here.”

Kara pushed herself to her feet, scrabbling to follow after Lena, who moved towards the sealed doors to the hangar.

“Is that- should you be flying? I mean-”

“You look like you’re about to keel over and die if you don’t get a serious dose of some UV rays and rest, and I’ll be damned if I let my brother get between me and a hot shower, a good bottle of some fifty-year-old cognac at my place, and a nice, long sleep. We don’t really have time to waste.”

“It’ll be out of my system in a few hours,” Kara croaked, her eyes bloodshot and skin ghastly in the wan lighting. “Maybe we can tie them up and wait.”

Putting the access code, Lena fixed Kara was a hard stare as the doors released with a quiet, pressurised hiss and started to part. A merciful rush of frigid air blew in through the small gap, chasing away the staleness of the dank hallways.

“You can stay if you want. I’ll send your sister to come and pick you up, along with these two.”

Arms folded across her chest, Lena stood rooted before the blustering wind that forced its way inside, until the gap was wide enough for her to pass through. Head bowed against the air currents at the top of the mountain, she felt the bite of the cold stinging her exposed skin, and her teeth ached in her head with the force it took to stop them from rattling. Beside her, Kara dragged herself along, remaining on her feet through sheer willpower and very little else.

Lena felt a kernal of smugness inside at the fact that Kara had followed after her, but the feeling quickly dissipated as the veil of clouds obscuring the peak parted momentarily to reveal the dizzying drop of a thousand feet. Stone and snow spread out below her, smaller peaks piercing the sky in the distance, and her stomach dropped as fear made her throat close up. Still, one sideways glance at Kara told her that they didn’t have much choice. Lena needed to get her to the DEO as soon as possible to get her help.

Making her way to the chopper parked and restrained against the helipad, Lena managed to open the door and push Kara up into one seat, before rounding the bulbous cab to open the other door. Hauling herself up into the open door, Lena eyed the panel of gauges and buttons and quickly tried to make sense of everything, before ducking back outside and released the restraints.

Inside, she shut the door on the bitter cold - although it wasn’t much warmer inside - and buckled herself in, donning a headset and shaking her head as she tried to rid herself of the dull headache and sporadic starbursts across her field of vision. Clearing her throat, she turned a few dials and flipped some buttons, and within five minutes of fumbling and guessing with her hands still manacled before her, she had them in the air, her stomach tied into fearful knots as she guided them down through a bank of clouds.

The trip to National City was long and fraught with moments of panic, Lena’s fear of flying rising to the surface every so often, even as she stamped it back down again. Kara either slept through the entire ride, or had promptly fallen into a state of unconsciousness as soon as Lena had managed to guide them through a bumpy take-off. Either way, it was a lonely flight and Lena almost wished Kara was awake to keep up a stream of chatter that chipped away at her anger if only to distract her from the wobbling flight.

Eventually, she made a hard landing onto the rooftop of the DEO headquarters though, cutting the engine as the propellers slowed, and as Lena dragged Kara’s limp body out with her, she was greeted by the sight of a dozen guns pointed at her. With the alien in her arms, Lena held her hands up in surrender, both of them sinking to their knees. She passed out as the last rush of adrenaline faded with the knowledge that she was safe, black figures rushing towards her as her eyes slid closed.

\---

Kara woke to the buttery yellow glow of sun lamps above her, dousing her with their strength-inducing UV rays, and she let out a quiet groan, the tickling of cold oxygen in her nose as she inhaled again sharply. Blinking back the gritty feeling of sleep, she peered through heavy-lidded eyes and tried to raise her heavy head. Her whole body felt leaden, and she had to wiggle her fingers and toes to be sure that she could.

As she finally managed to shake the fuzziness of sleep from her mind, Kara let her head loll to the side at the realisation that someone was there with her. Her breath caught in her throat as she met Lena’s anxious green eyes, taking in the mottled bruises and smattering of cuts as she lounged in a chair beside the bed Kara lay on, one socked foot up on the thin mattress.

“You’re awake,” Lena curtly pointed out. “I was starting to think you’d slipped into a coma. Wouldn’t be the first time, after all.”

With a weak laugh, Kara clawed at the oxygen mask, her clumsy fingers managing to unhook it on the second attempt. Her mouth was dry and her tongue thick, and Kara managed a quiet non-committal hum as she blinked owlishly.

Looking at Lena, she took in the black clothes bearing the DEO’s name, the cleanliness of her skin and the bandages wrapped around her hands, the glass of amber liquid she was absentmindedly swirling around in her glass. And her exhaustion evident in her hollowed eyes and the purple bruises beneath them.

“You’re still here,” Kara rasped.

Shrugging nonchalantly, Lena let her eyes wander as Kara stared at her. “Yeah, well, between you and me, we both know the DEO is incompetent. That’s why they need us to be the brawns and brains.”

She was silent for a moment, staring into her glass as her brow furrowed. “Thought I’d stick around and make sure they didn’t botch your first aid.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Eleven hours.”

Surprise widened Kara’s eyes as her expression softened slightly, a sorrowful yearning deep inside her chest as she stared at Lena. “You haven’t slept yet, have you?”

Shrugging, Lena smiled as she avoided Kara’s gaze. “At least I got my shower and a good drink - even if it’s not fifty-year-old cognac. Two out of three isn’t bad. And besides, the pain meds were an added bonus.”

Draining the last finger of alcohol and pressing her lips together in a grim line as the cheap liquor burned its way down, Lena set it down heavy-handedly on the tray of medical equipment before clapping her hands on her thighs and getting to her feet.

“But I think it’s time for me to leave now.”

“Wait,” Kara quietly called out, a plea in her voice as her fingers splayed, reaching for Lena.

Much to Kara’s surprise, she paused, back tense beneath the polo shirt, and then she turned. There was a question in her eyes, even as Lena kept her expression blank, feigning an indifference that Kara saw straight through.

“Why’d you really stay?” Kara whispered, a bewildered crease between her eyebrows.

Ducking her head down, Lena fiddled with her bandaged hands and let out a strained laugh, before looking up. There was a pained look on her face as she finally met Kara’s eyes once more, full of longing and wounded sadness.

“You already know why,” Lena bitterly murmured. “I stayed because, as much as I don’t  _ want _ to, I give a shit about what happens to you. I can’t  _ not _ care. And I hate it.”

Swallowing thickly, Kara blinked back the stinging feeling in her eyes as she looked up at the ceiling. “I heard what you said, you know. Before I hit him. I just- I want to say thank you. I know it’s not easy for you- I know I hurt you- I just … thank you for saving me anyway. Every time.”

With a quiet snort of laughter, Lena gave her a tight smile, “yeah, well, as I said, I wish I could  _ not _ … but here we are, I suppose.”

“And here we are,” Kara heavily sighed, regret welling up and threatening to swallow her whole.

They lapsed into silence for a moment, the tension hanging thickly between them, and Kara wanted to tell her again how she felt, wanted to pour her guts out with apologies and gratitude and every wonderfully amazing thing she admired about Lena. Instead, she was silent, her heart beating quickly in her chest as she felt her skin prickle with a cold sweat, a needle of fear in her heart. It felt like goodbye.

“Lena?” Kara thickly asked, breaking the heaviness of their silence. Her voice was hoarse with tears and she felt her stomach clench with a flurry of panic. “Do you think- is this- will I see you again?”

Sighing softly, Lena’s shoulders deflated and her face was etched with silence as she moved to Kara’s bedside. Standing over her, Lena gave her a searching look, eyes shining with a film of tears, before she reached out and cupped Kara’s face in a bandaged hand. They were soft against her skin, yet the tender brush of Lena’s bare fingertips were softer, trembling and gentle, and Kara’s eyelashes fluttered closed.

“Yeah, you will,” Lena murmured with resignation. “I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to figure it all out, but … we’re not done. I don’t know how we’ll get there, but we will.”

“Okay,” Kara breathed, the tension bleeding out of her as she went limp against the thin hospital mattress. “Okay.”

Nodding with a grave look on her face, Lena paused for a moment, lips pressed together in a flat line as her brow creased with a dark look. “Kara? If he ever uses me as bait again, do us both a favour and don’t come.”

A bubble of laughter worked its way up Kara’s throat and her eyelashes fluttered open as she smiled. Shaking her head, she reached up and covered Lena’s hand with her own. 

“I’ll pick you over anyone else, including myself, every time. No matter what. No matter if we’re not friends or if you’re still mad at me.”

A quiet, shuddering laugh fell from Lena’s parted lips, gentle surprise softening into a warm look of affection as her eyes creased at the corners. She leant down and pressed a soft kiss to Kara’s forehead, her lips warm and swollen, before pulling back. Kara looked up at her with pink cheeks and a shy smile on her face.

“Because there’s only one Lena Luthor, and  _ I _ sure as hell can’t recreate you in a lab.”

“And, unfortunately, you’re stuck with me for now," Lena said with a wry smile.


End file.
